zachos



(No Model.)

J. C. ZACHOS.

SYSTEM 0E METHOD 0E REPORTING SPEECE.

. No. 290,880. ilented Deo. 25, 1883.

n @n U het.

' STATES JOHN C. ZACHOS, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters-Patent No. 290,830, dated December 25, 18C3.

' 1 Applicationfned January 26, 1883. (No model.)

To @ZZ whom it 11i/ay concern.-

Be it known that I, JOHN C. ZACHOs, of the city, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and useful System or Method of Reporting Speech, of which the following is a specification.

My invention consists of l a special scheme of selected types or letters,which can be used to record signs of such sounds as are uttered in speech.

My invention further consists in the selectionof one letter with its special phonic signicance, standing invariably for one or more different sounds, las indicated by diacritic marks, andin theselection of one letter for vtwo or more sounds that are similar or cognate.

In the drawings, Figure` 1 represents the signs of sound constituting my phonic alpha- Fig. 2 shows my phonic text in connection with lthe ordinary text, and Fig. 3 illustrates the proposed arrangement of my phonic text upon the key-board of a typewriting machine.

Thefollowing table of letters or phenotypes, with their phonic significance given inthe accompanying words, maybe printed orWritten in capitals or in small letters, and maybe marked differently, according to the `usage of pro nouncing-dictionaries or spelling-books:

VoiocZ-Signsztwcloc Short sounds. Long sounds.

Oognatc vowel-sounds not used but rcp-1escnicdby the signs above given, and by the lV. A, as in Care, cognate to as in t.

c: u All, n u 07 u i Odd. l n u yyrny c: :c u u 'p.k u u lwley u :c XV, ou W'OO,

7.,; y (a semi-vowel.) U, Rule, WV, as in Voo, (a semi-vowel.) U, Bull, W', as inVoo,

(a semi-vowel.)

phonic textzjftecn. -Phonotypes, (used P, T,

J, x, n, Us, s, s,` M, N, L, n, w, Y, H. cognate sounds and signs in the alphabet, (not usedz) B, D, Ch, G, V, Th, Z, Sh. To these signs is added &, the sign for and- These consonantsigns of sounds need no illustration, as they have the same as their most common significance in the English alphabet, with the exception of T and S, used to represent sounds commonly written as th7 and shi7 Thus the forty-one elementary sounds of yEnglish speech are represented lin the phonic text by twenty-seven phonotypes, and constitute a text in which all the elementary sounds are represented by the fewest different signs, either directly or indirectly through their cognates, and yet made legible by its approximation to vthe common text of English. By this selection and device, brevity, economy, and legibility are secured for a phonic text designed to report speech. Furthermore this phonic text in its construction is put under the following rule, which distinguishes the phonic from the common text:

Rule for printing or writing the phonic text- Print or write every word with thephonotype alphabet according to its elenietary sounds, discarding all silent letters and all unaccented vowels of the common text of English, and using but one selected letter for its cognates in sound, Where there are two or moref cognate sounds in the language. Thispeculiar ,construct-ion of a phonic text by the rule above gives it its distinction and originality, and secures uniformity with the greatest degree of brevity, economy, and legibility consistent with the exigencies of reporting speech by means of a text as near as possible to thepresent text of English. Under this rule of dconstruction the following advantages V,are obtained for this phonic text: First, bythe use IOO of the phonic alphabet of signsdor the` phonotypes, every elementary sound in the language finds arepresentative, either directly orby an approxiinatecognate sound, to ywhichtlie lsign is also attached; secondly, by the omission of silent letters and' unaccentcd vowels, nearly ,3 gemeen sented in the phonic text:

Ara or an. Hzhe.

Szis or as. Lzwill or all. Tzto, it, or at. Vzwe. N'li'n or on. Szshe.

Fqzot' or if. Yzyou or ye. lYIz'am, my, or me. tzand.

Here are fourteen letters, representing in all twenty-four words the most frequent in their recurrence, and forming with their combinations in such phrases as of thezFT, to thelzTT, in the::NflS, are yon: YR, I am:IM, he will:HL, &c., from thirty to forty per cent. of the common text of English. A little practice soon familiariz'es the reader with this and all its peculiarities, so that he can print, write, and read the phonic text with ease.

l The following is given as a specimen of the phonic text and its strict adherence to the signs,` the rule, and the method of representing the very common words, as heretofore described:

In th'e beginning God created the Heavens N T- PKINN KOT KRATT -T HEFN S and the earth; and the earth was without FORM a For, a Termins ws run the face of the deep. T FAS F T TEP.

The res-ult of this determinate constitution ofthe phonic text is, that whereas the common tex-t of English requires on the average from five' to six letters to the word, and consequently from five to six touches (including they space between words) on a key-board designed to print the common text, the phonic text requires on the average three touches for the word (including the space) on akey-board designed to print this text 5 hence the words can be printed phonically nearly twice as fast as 'in the common orthography, with the same 'nnm-ber of touches employed on the ordinary type-writer; and if this system of notation is uscdwithout any mechanical means for recording the text the writer will be able to discard a corresponding number of characters.

When it is desired to use my system of phonotype Vnotation in connection with a mechanical means for recording the several characters, I propose to arrange the characters which I have described in columns by classes, as is shown in the drawings. The letters or signs of sound are purposely so arranged as to help the memory in a quick demand for theirlocation, andanseful application of their signicance as signs of sound or of words in printing by a typewriter instrument; hence all letters of the same denomination, with the exception of a few, are placed on the same horizontal line. The perpendicular rows are also arranged in duplicate or triplicate rows, except where there were no duplicates of the letters or figures required. The iirst three columns of letters on the right, as shown in the drawings, are devoted to certain oft-recurring words in speech, which, having no accented vowel and only one consonant-sound, can be represented in the phonic text bya single consonant letter, according to the rule of construction. These words and corresponding letters are the following:

Col. 1. Col. 2. Col. 3. &:and. Mzam. Aza or an. izr. Hzhe. Lzwin, TzThe. Szis or as. Szis or as. Tzto, at, or it. Tzto, at, or it. Wzwe. Nzin or on. Tzthe. Szshe.

*zof or ii". Rzare. Yzyou.

In the house, to the man, for-we trust, 81e. N a nos, fr r MAN, Fn w TRUST.

The next two columns are devoted to such consonant-sounds as precede the vowel-sounds in the formation of words in this phonic text. Here all combinations of consonant-sounds are provided for by placing S at the beginning and L and R at the end in the order o1" such combinations of consonants, as shown in the drawings.

Examples. Split, Scroll, Spring zzwords. 34578, 34568,- 34578 :columns srLiT, sxnoL, srniN :phonie In the above the gures indicate the order of the letters in the columns according to the number of the column. The columns marked 6 and 7 provide signs for all the vowe1-sounds of the language, with lV when used as a vowelsonnd, in column 8. This selection is made in accordance with the phonic alphabet IOO IIO

heretofore described, and furnishes all the vowel elements desired in the printing of the phonic text. In the columns marked 8 to 12, inclusive, are all the signs of sounds that the aforesaid phonic alphabet furnishes for the. 'presentation of the elementary sounds of the phonic text, in all combinations which can occur after the accented vowel of Words. Six letters in one column-M, L, S, T, N, R-are triplicated in three columns, (except the Win column,8,) and six letters-T, J, F, K, S, P- are duplicated in two columns. This arrangement, with the help of T and S in column 13, gives the command of all consonant-sounds after the accented vowel of Words printed in this phonic text. By the arrangement illustrated Words can be set by one-span of the hand on a key-board. Column 13 contains the hyphen and period Q), which are duplicated in column 15. It contains also the dollar-mark ($5), and, besides the T and S before mentioned, it has the y, used as the sign of the last sound in pity, duly, many, dmc., very often recurring in English. The columns 14 and 15 are devotedto the ten digits for recording numbers, and a duplication of thehyphen and period. This completes the arrangement of letters, signs, and gures for use on a key-board, designed, with the help of suitable mechanism, to set upon a line and print Words, parts of words, and short 3o phrases and numbers in the phonic text heretofore described.

Having thus' fully described my invention, what I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

1. In a system of phonotype notation, the herein-described arrangement of selected letters and si gns,with their respective diacritica-l marks arranged and combined for the formation of a text, substantially as described.

2. The herein-described text for `reporting speech, which consists of a phonic alphabet composed of selected letters With their respective diacritical marks, substantially as described.

J. C. ZACHOS. 

